leaf springs

While cruising the streets of the world wide web, I landed deep within the pages of a great thread in a motivemag forum. It had some outstanding photos of old car wrecks in it. Once you get passed the whole human aspect of it, it is truly amazing to see.

Many people assume that cars of that era were slow, but the truth is that many models were quite capable of today’s highway speeds. In fact, the first car to ever reach 200 mph was in 1927. Sure it was using plane engines, but it does show that America was deeply craving high speeds. Almost every car in the 1930’s could easily attain today’s 55 mph speed limit, and many of the vehicles from the 1920’s could too. Although these cars could clearly get up and go, their skinny tires, leaf spring suspension, mechanical drum brakes, and the dirt roads, made their stopping abilities less than stellar. Just imagine stopping your own “modern” car with nothing but the parking brake. That is similar to what many of the 1920’s cars had. Compound that with solid steering columns, steel dashboards, lack of seat belts and safety glass, and you were in rough shape in an accident. So the next time you hop in your car, open your window, and give a quick shout-out to modern technology.